Federal Labor has been calling out this Government’s failures to deliver recovery plans. The most high-profile overdue recovery plan is the one for the recently-uplisted koala. The koala recovery plan is seven years overdue. 
 
If this Government can’t even complete a recovery plan for the koala - one of Australia’s most iconic species - how can they be trusted to look out for other, less known, Australian species and ecological communities?
 
It’s been two years since the national bushfire crisis which killed or displaced more than three billion animals, and fires are still not listed as a ‘Key Threatening Process’ under the principal environmental law.  
 
Despite the contemporary challenges that face Australia’s endangered species, like climate change, bushfires and floods, the report shows the Morrison-Joyce Government is always slow to act, taking an average of 940 days to make listing assessments according to last year’s data. 
 
It shows the Morrison-Joyce Government is failing to ‘effectively review or support the implementation of’ recovery plans, threat abatement plans and conservation advices. 
 
And because they don't monitor properly, they don't even know if the plans and advices they do manage to put in place are effective. 
 
The recovery planning process has been beset by long delays, poor implementation and poor monitoring under this Government.
 
It is clear that the Morrison-Joyce Government has hollowed out biodiversity conservation over its near-decade in office. This Government’s record is one of cuts and delays. 
 
Australians and our environment are now reaping what the Morrison-Joyce Government has sown.
 
Only an Albanese Labor Government can be trusted to help protect Australia’s species.

FRIDAY, 18 MARCH 2022